1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a multilayer ceramic capacitor, and a multilayer ceramic capacitor including a ceramic multilayer body (capacitor main body) including a plurality of dielectric ceramic layers and a plurality of inner electrodes laminated with the dielectric ceramic layers interposed therebetween.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, a small-sized multilayer ceramic capacitor capable of having a large capacitance has been widely used with reduction of an electronic apparatus in size and weight. For example, the multilayer ceramic capacitor having a configuration in which outer electrodes are arranged on a ceramic multilayer body (capacitor main body) having a plurality of dielectric ceramic layers and a plurality of inner electrodes arranged on a plurality of interfaces between the dielectric ceramic layers so as to conduct with the above-mentioned inner electrodes has been widely used.
As such a multilayer ceramic capacitor, Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2011-207696 disclosed a multilayer ceramic capacitor (multilayer porcelain capacitor) in which inner electrodes formed with nickel are arranged in a dielectric using a dielectric porcelain composition containing barium titanate as a main component and containing about 5 to 15 mol of a component expressed by (1−x)BaZrO3+xSrZrO3 in terms of BaZrO3 and SrZrO3, about 3 to 5 mol of Mg oxide in terms of MgO, about 4 to 6 mol of oxide of a rare-earth element in terms of R2O3, about 0.5 to 1.5 mol of oxide of at least one element selected from Mn, Cr, Co, and Fe in terms of MnO, Cr2O3, CO3O4, and Fe2O3, about 2.5 to 4 mol of a compound containing Si in terms of Si relative to about 100 mol of barium titanate, wherein x is about 0.4 to 0.9.
The above-mentioned dielectric porcelain composition has a high relative dielectric constant under high intensity of an electric field and has preferable temperature characteristics and reliability even when the dielectric ceramic layers are thinned. Therefore, the multilayer ceramic capacitor using the dielectric porcelain composition, which is preferable in high-temperature load lifetime, can be also obtained.
However, in recent years, the dielectric ceramic layers and the inner electrodes are increasingly thinned and multilayered in order to reduce the size of the multilayer ceramic capacitor and increase the capacitance of the multilayer ceramic capacitor. With this, problems of structural defects such as generation of cracks and delamination and a decrease in coverage of the inner electrodes become significant and a multilayer ceramic capacitor having higher reliability has been required.